Field of the Invention
Quite a number of games are known wherein words are formed on a playing surface by placing tiles having letters thereon and numbers which indicate the value of each letter on the playing surface. One such game is taught for example in U.S. Pat. No. 1,591,639 issued to E. R. McDonald. Another is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 3,655,195 issued to Bean, et al. Still other games which utilize letters are taught in Italian Pat. No. 573,343, U.S. Pat. No. 1,553,835, U.S. Pat. No. 2,602,667 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,984,106.
In the great majority of prior art word forming games, the element of chance is emphasized only through the random selection of the letter tiles. Thus, the winners of these games are generally primarily determined by the relative skills of the players participating in them. Certainly, such games are not designed for adjustability of the relative importance played by chance and skill. Further, the prior art games do not generally provide a mode for "bluffing" one's opponents to try to defeat them at the game.
It would be desirable to provide a word forming game wherein the element of chance was balanced more closely with the element of skill so that even a poor player having a relatively good run of luck could more easily defeat a better player. It would also be advantageous if the relative importance of chance and skill could be varied within limits. It would further be desirable if such a word forming game could be made more interesting by including bluffing as an integral part of the game. It would also be desirable if such a game was provided wherein the different players in the game could be building towards different words at the same time thus causing shifts in emphasis as words are being formed.